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Machiavellianism
]] Machiavellianism is "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct".the Oxford English Dictionary "Machiavellian" as a word became very popular in the late 16th century in English, though "Machiavellianism" itself is first cited in 1626. The word comes from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, born in 1469, who wrote ''Il Principe (The Prince), among other works. In modern psychology, Machiavellianism is one of the dark triad personalities, characterized by a duplicitous interpersonal style, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and personal gain. Political thought In the 16th century, immediately following the publication of The Prince, Machiavellianism was seen as a foreign plague infecting northern European politics, originating in Italy, and having first infected France. It was in this context that the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572 in Paris came to be seen as a product of Machiavellianism, a view greatly influenced by the Huguenot Innocent Gentillet, who published his Discours contre Machievel in 1576, which was printed in ten editions in three languages over the next four years.Anglo, 283 – see also the whole chapter Gentillet held, quite wrongly according to Sydney Anglo, that Machiavelli's "books were held most dear and precious by our Italian and Italionized [sic] courtiers" in France (in the words of his first English translation), and so (in Anglo's paraphrase) "at the root of France's present degradation, which has culminated not only in the St Bartholomew massacre but the glee of its perverted admirers".Anglo, 286 In fact there is little trace of Machiavelli in French writings before the massacre, not that politicians telegraph their intentions in writing, until Gentillet's own book, but this concept was seized upon by many contemporaries, and played a crucial part in setting the long-lasting popular concept of Machiavellianism.Anglo, Chapters 10 and 11; p. 328 etc. The English playwrights William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were enthusiastic proponents of this view. Shakespeare's Gloucester, later Richard III, refers to Machiavelli in Henry VI, Part III, for instance: I can add colours to the chameleon, Change shapes with Proteus for advantages, And set the murderous Machiavel to school. In The Jew of Malta (1589–90) "Machievel" in person speaks the Prologue, claiming not to be dead, but to have possessed the soul of (the Duke of) Guise, "And, now the Guise is dead, is come from France/ To view this land, and frolic with his friends" (Prologue, lines 3–4).[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/901/901-h/901-h.htm Project Gutenberg Jew of Malta text] Marlowe's last play, The Massacre at Paris (1593) takes the massacre, and the following years, as its subject, with the Duke of Guise and Catherine de' Medici both depicted as Machiavellian plotters, bent on evil from the start. The Anti-Machiavel is an 18th-century essay by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia and patron of Voltaire, rebutting The Prince, and Machiavellianism. It was first published in September 1740, a few months after Frederick became king, and is one of many such works. Denis Diderot, the French philosopher, viewed Machiavellianism as "an abhorrent type of politics" and the "art of tyranny".Diderot, Denis (ascribed by Jacques Proust). "Machiavellianism." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Timothy Cleary. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2004. Trans. of "Machiavelisme," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 9. Paris, 1765. Accessed 31 March 2015. Psychology Machiavellianism is also a term that some social, forensic and personality psychologists use to describe a person's tendency to be unemotional, and therefore able to detach themself from conventional morality and hence to deceive and manipulate others. In the 1960s, Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis developed a test for measuring a person's level of Machiavellianism (sometimes referred to as the Machiavelli test).Christie, R., and F. L. Geis. (1970) "How devious are you? Take the Machiavelli test to find out." Journal of Management in Engineering 15.4: 17. Their Mach - IV test, a twenty-statement personality survey, became the standard self-assessment tool of Machiavellianism. People scoring high on the scale (high Machs) tend to endorse statements such as, "Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so," (No. 1) but not ones like, "Most people are basically good and kind" (No. 4), "There is no excuse for lying to someone else," (No. 7) or "Most people who get ahead in the world lead clean, moral lives" (No. 11). Using their scale, Christie and Geis conducted multiple experimental tests that showed that the interpersonal strategies and behavior of "High Machs" and "Low Machs" differ.Christie, R. & Geis, F. (1970) "Studies in Machiavellianism". NY: Academic Press. Their basic results have been widely replicated.McIlwain, D. 2003. Bypassing empathy: mapping a Machiavellian theory of mind and sneaky power. In Individual Differences In Theory Of Mind, eds. B. Repacholi and V. Slaughter. Macquarie Monographs in Cognitive Science. NY: Psychology Press. 39-68. Measured on the Mach - IV scale, males are, on average, slightly more Machiavellian than females.Gunnthorsdottir, A., McCabe, K. & Smith, V. 2002 "Using the Machiavellianism instrument to predict trustworthiness in a bargaining game". Journal of Economic Psychology 23, 49-66 Motivation A 1992 review described Machiavellian motivation as related to cold selfishness and pure instrumentality, and those high on the trait were assumed to pursue their motives (e.g. sex, achievement, sociality) in duplicitous ways. More recent research on the motivations of high Machs compared to low Machs found that they gave high priority to money, power, and competition and relatively low priority to community building, self-love, and family concerns. High Machs admitted to focusing on unmitigated achievement and winning at any cost. Abilities Due to their skill at interpersonal manipulation, there has often been an assumption that high Machs possess superior intelligence, or ability to understand other people in social situations. However, research has firmly established that Machiavellianism is unrelated to IQ. Furthermore, studies on emotional intelligence have found that high Machiavellianism actually tends to be associated with low emotional intelligence as assessed by both performance and questionnaire measures. Both emotional empathy and emotion recognition have been shown to have negative correlations with Machiavellianism. Additionally, research has shown that Machiavellianism is unrelated to a more advanced theory of mind, that is, the ability to anticipate what others are thinking in social situations. If high Machs actually are skilled at manipulating others, this appears to be unrelated to any special cognitive abilities as such. Relations with other personality traits Machiavellianism is one of the three personality traits referred to as the dark triad, along with narcissism and psychopathy. Some psychologists consider Machiavellianism to be essentially a subclinical form of psychopathy, although recent research suggests that while Machiavellianism and psychopathy overlap, they are distinct personality constructs.Paulhus, D. L. & Williams, K. M. 2002. "The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy". Journal of Research in Personality 36 (2002) 556–563. Machiavellianism has been found to be negatively correlated with Agreeableness (r'' = −0.47) and Conscientiousness (''r = −0.34), two dimensions of the Big Five personality model (NEO-PI-R). However, Machiavellianism correlates more highly with the Honesty-humility dimension of the six-factor HEXACO model than with any of the Big Five dimensions. Machiavellianism has also been located within the interpersonal circumplex, which consists of the two independent dimensions of agency and communion. Agency refers to motivation to succeed and to individuate the self, whereas communion refers to motivation to merge with others and to support group interests. Machiavellianism lies in the quadrant of the circumplex defined by high agency and low communion. Machiavellianism has been found to lie diagonally opposite from a circumplex construct called self-construal, a tendency to prefer communion over agency. This suggests that people high in Machiavellianism do not simply wish to achieve, they wish to do so at the expense of (or at least without regard to) others. Game theory In 2002, the Machiavellianism scale of Christie and Geis was applied by behavioral game theorists Anna Gunnthorsdottir, Kevin McCabe and Vernon L. Smith in their search for explanations for the spread of observed behavior in experimental games, in particular individual choices which do not correspond to assumptions of material self-interest captured by the standard Nash equilibrium prediction. It was found that in a trust game, those with high MACH-IV scores tended to follow homo economicus' equilibrium strategies while those with low MACH-IV scores tended to deviate from the equilibrium, and instead made choices that reflected widely accepted moral standards and social preferences. Dimensionality Although there have been myriad proposed factor structures, two dimensions emerge most consistently within factor-analytic research - differentiating Machiavellian views from tactics.Fehr, B.; Samsom, D.; and Paulhus, D. L., 1992. The Construct of Machiavellianism: Twenty Years Later. In C. D. Spielberger & J. N. Butcher (Eds), Advances in Personality Assessment (Vol 9), pp. 77–116. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Although the Mach-IV scale is unable to reliably capture the two dimensions, a 10-item subset of the scale known as the Two-Dimensional Mach-IV (TDM-V), reproduces the views and tactics dimensions across countries and sample types.Monaghan, C., Bizumic, B., & Sellbom, M. (2016). The role of Machiavellian views and tactics in psychopathology. Personality and Individual Differences, 94, 72–81. The views dimension appears to capture the neurotic, narcissistic, pessimistic, and distrustful aspects of Machiavellianism, while the tactics component captures the more psychopathic, unconscientious/impulsive, self-serving, and deceitful behavioural aspects. In the workplace Machiavellianism in the workplace is the employment of cunning and duplicity in a business setting. It is an increasingly studied phenomenon. The root of the concept of Machiavellianism is the book The Prince by Machiavelli which lays out advice to rulers how to govern their subjects. Machiavellianism has been studied extensively over the past 40 years as a personality characteristic that shares features with manipulative leadership, and morally bankrupt tactics. It has in recent times been adapted and applied to the context of the workplace and organizations by many writers and academics. The Machiavellian typically only manipulates on occasions where it is necessary to achieve the required objectives.Kessler, SR; Bandeiii, AC; Spector, PE; Borman, WC; Nelson, CE; and Penney, LM 2010. Reexamining Machiavelli: A three dimensional model of Machiavellianism in the workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40, 1868–1896 Oliver James identifies Machiavellianism as one of the dark triadic personality traits in the workplace, the others being narcissism and psychopathy.James O Office Politics: How to Thrive in a World of Lying, Backstabbing and Dirty Tricks (2013) A new model of Machiavellianism based in organizational settings consists of three factors: * maintaining power * harsh management tactics * manipulative behaviors The presence of Machiavellianism in an organisation has been positively correlated with counterproductive workplace behaviour and workplace deviance. See also References Sources *Anglo, Sydney. Machiavelli – the First Century: Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and Irrelevance, p. 229, Oxford University Press, 2005, , . *Spielberger, Charles D; Butcher, James N. Advances in Personality Assessment, vol. 9. (Hillsdale, NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992. External links *Machiavellianism in The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, online *Machiavellianism test (MACH-VI) is an interactive version of the MACH-IV test of Machiavellianism. Category:Machiavellianism . Category:Eponymous political ideologies Category:Political philosophy Category:Political terminology Category:Renaissance philosophy Category:Dark triad Category:Narcissism Category:Psychological manipulation Category:Psychopathy